Bruce Museum’s Ksepka named to 40 Under 40 list

Updated 10:00 am, Wednesday, July 1, 2015

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Daniel Ksepka and his wife Kristin Lamm celebrate Ksepka being named to the 2015 Fairfield County 40 Under 40 of people who are making a mark on the community. Ksepka is the science coordinator at the Bruce Museum. less

Daniel Ksepka and his wife Kristin Lamm celebrate Ksepka being named to the 2015 Fairfield County 40 Under 40 of people who are making a mark on the community. Ksepka is the science coordinator at the Bruce ... more

Photo: Contributed / Contributed Photo

Bruce Museum’s Ksepka named to 40 Under 40 list

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Daniel Ksepka, paleontologist, penguin enthusiast and science curator of the Bruce Museum, was listed among the 40 Under 40-year-old professionals who have produced outstanding work in Fairfield County.

“I have a PhD in paleontology for fossil birds, but my heart is in penguins. I’ve interacted with them in zoos and spied on them in the wild,” said Ksepka.

The Bruce Museum, Ksepka’s professional home for the past year, is an art and science museum where Hoffman paintings and fossils from Madagascar are showcased in different exhibits under the same roof.

“There’s not many places where you can see both of those same things together… It’s an exciting place to work,” said Ksepka.

Thursday he attended an awards ceremony at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk with the 39 other accomplished professionals who made the 40 Under 40 list.

As curator of science at the Bruce, Ksepka is in charge of coming up with ideas for science exhibits—he spearheaded the “Madagascar: Ghosts of the Past” exhibit—and he’s in charge of the science collection. The Bruce science collection houses four times the number of objects on display to the public, and includes minerals, fossils, insects and eggs.

He said he was probably given the award because of his work on a fossil bird called Pelagornis sandersi. The bird was the largest known animal with the capacity to fly. It had a wingspan of up to 24 feet, which made flying seemingly impossible—the larger the bird, the harder to lift off the ground, he said. It was twice as large as the current live bird species with the widest wingspan, a type of albatross.

In his research, he speculated that the bird had to get a running start before take-off, and that it used the strong ocean air currents to fly.

Ksepka’s work was featured in several news outlets, including The Washington Post, and was highlighted in the movie “Top Ten Biggest Beasts Ever.”

“I thought people would be interested, but we were amazed at how viral it was, we had hundreds of people calling from all over,” said Ksepka.

For the movie, they interviewed him and recreated an animated bird based on the Pelagornis sandersi fossil.

“The animation was flying around my head. It was wonderful to see: I worked on a skeleton, and it came back to life,” said Ksepka.

He’s also worked with live penguins and penguin fossils all over the world.

“They’re just so fun to work with. The males make their heads bigger to impress their girlfriends, some penguins bite you, some run way. They all get excited when food comes out, and whenever there’s butterflies they chase them. It’s great. They’re just so cute!” he said.

Ksepka is planning on hosting a lecture as part of the “Madagascar: Ghosts of the Past” exhibit where postgraduates, doctorates and advanced undergraduates can apply to give mini-lectures on the animals from the island. It would be a chance for the college students to learn more and network with others in their field. After that, he said he wants to open a new exhibit in November that would feature fossils from Green River, a fossil depository in Wyoming.

He said the fossils in the upcoming exhibit are so beautiful they’re “like works of art.”